Biggest LBO Ever, SPAC 2.0, Open Source AI Models, State AI Regulation Frenzy

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
All right, everybody, welcome back to the number one podcast in the world. Of course, that's the All-In podcast. I'm your host, Jason Calacanis, with me again, your chairman, dictator, Chamath Palihapitiya, and the sultan of science, David Friedberg. David Sacks will be calling in from the Skift. He's in some deep negotiations for the United States of America. From the Skift. There's no T at the end, it's just Skift. No T. Oh, Skift to my left. He's in the Skift, doing something with his BlackBerry and a bunch of generals. Nobody knows what's going on in Sacks' life. But he'll crack in from the Skift any moment now. But we'll start with...

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:35)
I see that Pete Heggs has announced a PT and a fitness test for the generals. Could you imagine if Sacks had to pass a PT? Oh my God.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:43)
They should totally make it for the administration. Sacks, we need you to do a one push up, Sacks.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:48)
What do they do if you don't pass? They remove you from your... You probably get a cure period.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:53)
We should do a push up contest. That would be great. Winner take all. How many push ups can you do, Friedberg?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (0:58)
You have to adjust for people's heights. I'm the tallest of all of you. I have a much longer limb system. What does that mean? So 20 for me is much harder than 20 for you, Jason.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:07)
I mean 20 is easy for me at this point.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:10)
You're like Bill Bull Baggins. It'll take you like eight seconds to put on the tank, man.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:14)
Bill Bull Baggins. How about Thor? I'm like Thor at this. I'm going to my Daniel Craig era.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:18)
Jay Cal has an elbow to his weight ratio that's highly advantage.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:23)
All right, let's get started. Enough shenanigans. EA is being taken.

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (1:27)
What is your arm length, Jay Cal?

**Jason Calacanis** (1:28)
Do you have a good arm length? My wingspan? My wingspan technically is enough to kick your ass with one hand tied behind my back. That's actually what it is.
Okay, EA is being taken private in the largest take private deal in history. $55 billion. Man, that just stacks up to, let's see, Texas Power Company in 2007, HCA Healthcare, $33 billion. This is a large deal. Investors in the take private include Saudi's PIF, Silver Lake, and friend of the pod, Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, $210 a share, $25 premium on the stock, Kushner's largest LP and affinity, as you know, Saudi PIF as well. The PIF has invested over $900 billion. But you know many of the things, Lucid Motors, Live Golf, the SoftBank Vision Fund, Uber back in the day, Newcastle, the Premier League. Electronic Arts obviously is in the video game business. They were founded at Sequoia's office in 1982 in San Mateo. Shout out to our guy Rulof Botha, who joined us for the All-In Summit. Their headquarters still in Redwood City. Madden NFL, The Sims. Oh, that's why you have the background in The Sims this week. Need for Speed. Pretty insane deal here, Chamath. And this is a high watermark for private equity. Anyway, you look at it and the PIF loves games. They are the biggest shareholder in Nintendo. Savvy Games, Scopely. I mean, they just keep buying games. What are your thoughts here on this deal happening right now?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (3:22)
I really like it. Let me give you the bull case and then let me give you what the bear case would have to believe. The thing to remember is that video games is the anchor pillar of usage across the entire internet. Last week at our poker game, we had Matt Bromberg join in just for dinner, who's the CEO of Unity, and Alex Blum, who's the COO of Unity. And one of the stats that they shared with us at dinner was it's about 3 billion DAL play games. Which is just an, exactly, it's an incredible, incredible stat. So, in many ways, it's much bigger than social networking and social media or as big. And in that, EA is sort of this 800-pound gorilla. But I think the problem is, is that they've always been these gatekeepers, and I think that there's a risk and a chance that these gatekeepers get eroded away. Specifically, who I'm talking about are folks like Microsoft and Xbox. And at the point that this company is going private, there's some really interesting things that are happening. So, Xbox, I think the day after the EA deal got announced, decided to hike prices 50% to their subscription service. And what happened over the subsequent few days is that so many people tried to cancel that the site went down. So, what are you seeing happening? You have distribution gatekeepers trying to raise prices and take share.